Commission and Study Board Official to Share Nobel Prize for Seminal Role with Climate Change Panel

The International Joint Commission and the International Upper Great Lakes Study (IUGLS) congratulate Dr. James P. Bruce for the seminal role he played in helping to launch the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). At a ceremony in Oslo, Norway on December 10th, Dr. Bruce participated as the only representative from Canada in the presentation ceremony for the Nobel Peace Prize. The Norwegian Nobel Committee chose to honor the IPCC and former Vice President Al Gore "for their efforts to build up and disseminate greater knowledge about man-made climate change, and to lay the foundations for the measures that are needed to counteract such change."

Dr. Bruce currently co-chairs the Public Interest Advisory Group of IUGLS. He has previously served as Canadian co-chair of the IJC Great Lakes Science Advisory Board and the Great Lakes Water Quality Board. Dr. Bruce is a world-renowned meteorologist who served in high levels of the Canadian government and with international organizations including the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) for more than 50 years.

In 1988, as Acting Deputy Secretary-General of WMO, Dr. Bruce helped to write the terms of reference for IPCC and convened for WMO the first meeting of the panel in Geneva that same year. Under his leadership, the three Working Group structure of IPCC was established, and Dr. Bruce later co-chaired one of the working groups and served as review editor for the 2007 report.

Dr. Eugene Stakhiv, U.S. co-chair of the International Upper Great Lakes Study, is also an active participant in the IPCC, was co-chair of the first IPCC Water Resources Group, lead author in the second and third IPCC reports, and reviewer of the fourth IPCC report.

Editor's Note: A letter from the International Joint Commission to Dr. Bruce is attached.